Family!!!!

Oh it was so great seeing you!!!!! Like in moving motion picture!!!! Ha. And hearing your voices! You all seemed to be doing so good and just loving and enjoying life!!! I thought it would make me super sad afterwards. But it didn't! It just made me super happy! And made me realize that I have been so blessed to have been given such a fabulous family!!! And now with New Years coming I hope we are all looking back on the past year and trying to come up with plans and goals as to how we can make this upcoming year even better!!!! I am going to be doing that. Though of course for me it will be a little different than for you guys. :) But guess what!? I am going to be able to say real soon that I am coming home this year!!!! How crazy!!! Ha. I seriously can't believe that I have been out already for 7 1/2 months! And that I have less than a year already! It is crazy how the time goes. But I do pray for all of you every night before I go to bed! So I want you to know that I do think about you all at home everyday! We lost some of our marked investigators because they didn't make it to church. One got sooo close! Him and his friend came and walked up and down the right road. But they didn't see it!!!! So they had gone back home! We were so sad! So that means he have to remark him for a week later because they have to come to church twice before getting baptized. But we gave them a church tour and our plan is to mark his friend too! But I have already known him! Me and Sister Wach actually had him marked!!!! I have no idea what happened with him! We had kept trying to get him to our lessons but he just didn't show up. And now he is back in the picture wanting to come to church. While we were in the Sacrament room, you could tell he felt the reverence there. Manuel tends to talk really loud, so João, kept shushing him. Ha. It was really cool! And it is perfect because we can baptize both of them together. :) And Guilherme is back from vacation! So we can remark him as well. And he sounded soooo happy on the phone!!! Haha. So he has gotten over his girlfriend breaking up with him. So that is great! And we have a new man, Antonio. He lost his wife a few years ago. And they were never married. And he has never been baptized. But he is a sweetheart and knows he needs to be baptized. He definitely felt the spirit as we were talking to him about baptism and showed him the baptismal font. He came to church yesterday. He said he really enjoyed my talk. So yes, I had to give a talk in church yesterday! Ha. They found me! I have gone until now without giving a talk! My companions couldn't believe it! But it went really well. But I found out how they get you to realize you are short on time here when giving a talk. They kick you in the back of the leg! Ha. It caught me off guard. I was glad I didn't make any noise, but I couldn't help from turning around. Ha. So everyone knew what had happened pretty much. And so I quickly ended it. Though I hadn't even taken that much time... And he tapped me three times in total. Ha. I wrapped up quick, I guess he just got impatient or something. Which was sad because all it did was make me a little bit annoyed. I told my companions that and they couldn't believe he tapped me three times at the end! Ha. Becuase I had wrapped up so quickly at the end after I had turned around from the first one. Lol. But it was good. I felt the spirit through all of it, the end made it a little hard, but it was good. It is so crazy though cause I get so nervous before, but then once I was up there. I was great! It is the spirit taking over. I love that so much. Well, I don't have much more time. But I hope all goes well with getting Steffy ready to leave! And anything else that is coming up! I love you all so much! Until next week!

Love Always,

Sister Stokes